


Strangler Fig

by KLStarre



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Campaign 05: A Crown of Candy, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Last Stand, Sacrifice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:07:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24888868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KLStarre/pseuds/KLStarre
Summary: That guilt, he is accustomed to.(Or, Murph mentioned that he expected Theo to die in episode 10. This is his final stand.)
Relationships: Theobald Gumbar & The Rocks Family
Comments: 14
Kudos: 60





	Strangler Fig

**Author's Note:**

> Not 100% sure how to warn for this, but tw for something that is not quite suicide ideation but is very much someone looking for an excuse to die for their cause

There is a certain kind of guilt that Theobald Gumbar has learned to live with. The kind of guilt that is irrational but not irrational enough to dismiss. The kind that is old, and so has begun to fade but also, because it is old, has taken root, growing around the softer parts of his heart and choking them out, like a parasite.

That guilt, he is accustomed to.

When he hears Ruby announce that Jet is dead, that it is all her fault, a different kind of guilt grows up from his stomach and through his heart and fills his throat so that all he can choke out is a “What do you mean she’s _dead_.” Ineloquent and useless.

The king says “I know,” resigned, and the queen looks like she had the day that Theo had brought her the news of Lazuli’s death. A trail of blood trickles down Amethar’s face as he holds Ruby, and Ruby seems like she may never move again, frozen and still. Jet is _dead_. Jet is dead and Ruby and Liam had escaped through luck alone and Amethar would be dead, too, if he weren’t so impossible to kill.

He’d managed to save Caramelinda, he reminds himself. The weight that is growing inside him tells him that Caramelinda could have gotten out on her own. The weight that is growing inside him tells him that Jet had been eighteen. The weight that is growing inside him tells him that one success in a long line of failures is the exception, and not the rule.

It should have been him. He had sworn an oath to a family he loves and a kingdom he had once hoped to save, and it should have been him.

He does not process what anyone is saying, but hears enough to respond with a promise that he will get the rest of them out. It sounds empty, words with a core hollowed out by the loss of Jet and Toby and Lapin and Lazuli, long ago, but he means it. All of his life that has been worth living, Theo has spent training himself to die for the Rocks family.

They decide to run. To find Manta Ray Jack and his ship. It will require stealth, and Theo looks down at himself, at his plate, at his shield, and nods. He considers offering to stay behind so that they might have a better chance, but then he thinks of the enemies that, by now, must be crawling over Dulcington, and he keeps quiet.

They run. Ruby uses her Mage Hand to keep his armor quiet, and he cannot look her in the eye to thank her – it is his job to protect _her_ , not the other way around, and she is strong and smart and capable but she is also a child and her sister just died. The look on her face as she runs is scarier than the knowledge that their best efforts were not enough to stop another war.

Behind them, there are dogs. Theo prepares to turn back, to make his final stand here – it is not glorious, but he has never been one for glory. And glory is earned, anyway; earned by better knights than he and by princesses turned kings. But he doesn’t have to. Cumulous sprints off, faster, quieter, more effective, and Theo is disconcerted to notice a twinge of disappointment that it is not him. Disappointment, even though it is all but guaranteed that Cumulous will survive and escape, and Theo would never have been able to catch up once he fell behind.

Something to examine later, maybe, if he makes it out. Another tendril of _Jet didn’t get that chance_ chokes him as he fights to keep his breathing even. There is no part of him that expects there to be a later.

Dulcington is close, and beyond that, safety. Liam fires arrows off into the night, and Ruby uses her Mage Hand to distract their pursuers, and Theo makes eye contact with Amethar and knows they are both thinking of how proud Sapphria would be. Sapphria, who had tried to end the war without blood, as little good as that had done.

They reach the town and there is no hesitation as they head for where Liam left Jet’s body. It seems like they might make it. For a brief moment, the ship in view, only one bridge left to cross, Jet’s body in the king’s arms, it seems like they might make it.

And an arrow flies from nowhere. Theo jumps in front of it, without even thinking, brain clicking into the gear it’s been trained to think in, and he takes it right in the shoulder. It might not even have hit anyone, but the pain lances through him and he grits his teeth and the guilt withers for just a second as he looks through the darkness to see where it had come from.

There’s an army. Ceresians and Vegetanians and, unless he’s much mistaken, Cruller’s men, too. Theo, most of the time, is not an angry person, but when he sees Calroy’s colors a rage flashes through him and the pain disappears.

They are at the bridge. If Theo can buy a minute, two minutes, they can escape. “Get out of here,” he growls, sword already drawn, and he can see Amethar start to protest, despite everything, despite the wounds that have not even begun to close, and he can see Liam think about revenge, but Caramelinda meets his eyes. She, he thinks, more than anyone, understands. Understands the weight of being useless and of crushing, blinding, overwhelming failure. She nods to him, and he returns it, and then she pulls Amethar and Ruby and Liam away.

Theo settles into place on the bridge, sword out, shield ready. Behind him, the Rocks family’s footsteps echo. In front of him, the army grows closer.

“Just one of you?” spits a breadstick, and Theo allows himself a smile inside his helm.

“Yes,” he says. “Just me.”

“You’ll barely be able to give them seconds.” The breadstick is still smiling a self-satisfied smile when Theo steps forward and slices his head off. The expression doesn’t change as it falls into the river and is carried away.

“Minutes.” Theo responds, stepping back, daring the next person to come after him. “All they need.” Finally, _finally_ , he is where he can be useful. He is here to fight, to hold off, to protect, to die, and this is what he is _meant to do_. None of this army, sent to kill a king, can understand that. None of this army has the scars that he has, or the failures that he has counted, or the single, clean breath of air he is able to draw around the guilt in his throat that has begun to release its grip on his esophagus. Theobald Gumbar exists to die for the Rocks family. And, for the next minute, these soldiers exist to be killed by him.

He breathes freely for the first time in decades, and the army surges forward. He cuts them down, one at a time, and archers stay back and fire at him, and there are dozens of arrows in the air and some hit, of course they do, but the pain is nothing. The pain is a sign that he has bought another second.

The bodies pile around him, and he is bleeding, and he is distracted, and an axe sinks into his shoulder, the same shoulder that had been hit by the arrow, the first arrow, and it goes numb. If he were planning to live, now is when he would turn and run. Instead, he drops his shield, something he has never, ever done, and he switches his sword to his non-dominant hand, and he resumes swinging, smooth with thousands of hours of practice, as his arm dangles by his side, useless.

He imagines how Jet must have felt, dead in the dark, and grits his teeth. A dead arm is nothing is nothing is the least of what he owes is sworn to offer is bound to sacrifice and the count in his head tells him it has been forty-five seconds and he wants to scream but he is silent.

Blows reflect off of his armor, and anyone who gets within reach dies in one swing. Sparks of green fly. Sprinkle is faster than he is, distracts his enemies and escapes before he can be hit, and there is something of Lazuli with him, on this battlefield, even though he had abandoned her on the last battlefield they had shared.

One minute.

A sword across his knee, his bad knee, the one that had never fully healed, and he stumbles.

One minute and five seconds.

The leg shakes and he manages to slash open the guts of a Vegetanian hoping to get in an easy shot before his knee gives out and he falls to it. A familiar, comfortable position, even with the knowledge that death is around the corner and with the blood trickling from the spaces where his plate connects to itself.

One minute and fifteen seconds.

From his knees, he ducks under swipes at his head, without the time or the strength to stand. He slashes at legs and stomachs and these soldiers are untrained, most of them complacent, young, stupid, trusting in the peace that the Concord had brought. Theo has been complacent once in his life, in his own home country, and now Jet is dead because of it. Around him, they fall.

One minute and thirty seconds.

The first soldier passes him and Theo is able to reach back and trip him, shove him into the river, but it’s closer than he would want. He tries to stand and falls again and his ear gets sliced off. There is no pain, anymore, just a dull ringing and haze slowly creeping across his vision.

Two minutes.

Behind him, he hears the foghorn of the ship. He hears the straining as it pulls away, and the gentle splash of waves as it disembarks into the night. He drops his sword.

The execution is quick and vengeful; an arm, and then his other ear, and then, after several hacks by someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing while blood bubbles up in his throat and satisfaction fills his lungs, his head.

Sir Theobald Gumbar dies on his knees, and the Rocks family drifts downriver.


End file.
